Excursion to Meteora
Traveling on METEOR is an unforgettable experience.
METEORA is a group of high, steep cliffs and rocks crowned with monasteries, hermitages and cells, and their various caves have been turned into ascetic dwellings for Orthodox monasticism since the 11th century. These cliffs are located near the city of Kalabaka at an altitude of about three hundred meters above the level of the Thessalian valley.
A thousand cliffs and rocks that are visible from afar, like a stone mass, amaze with grandeur, inspire fear and delight.
In these places, the ancient doctor Asclepius lived, who, together with his children, created the Asklepion hospital, where he treated his patients.
Monastic life, that is, leaving human society and voluntary imprisonment in hermit places, had its beginning for Christianity already in the first centuries. The exact date of the appearance of monasticism in METEORA has not been established, but in the 11th century there were already monks and dwellings of ascetic hermits in this region.
In the 14th century, as written in the chronicles, the influential monk Athanasios arrived in Meteora and founded the first monastery on a rocky mountain. He called the cliff METEORO, as it seemed to hang between heaven and earth, at an altitude of 619 meters above sea level. Since then, the entire mountain ensemble has been called METEORA.
The path to the monasteries goes through the village of KASTRAKI. The green vegetation ends and suddenly high rocky gray mountains rise, a real "forest" of huge rocky mountains, on the tops of which monasteries are located, mysteriously concordant and in harmony with the landscape. Up there, solitude and silence are the law, a unique calmness is felt.
On these barren rocky mountains, which became palaces for thousands of ascetic hermits, Orthodox monks learned to be wise in thought and submissive in self-consciousness.
